[3] Homer was born healthy, but after suffering a drop to a hearthstone as a baby,[4] he became a hunchback, standing only 4 ft 11 in (1.50 m) with a weight under 100 lb (45 kg).

Lea's first command was not very successful as Kang's power and support was rapidly destroyed, but he did make it to Beijing in time to ride through the city with the international force that liberated it from the Boxers.

Lea was also an author of two works on geopolitics: The Valor of Ignorance predicted the rise of Japanese militarist aggression and a Japanese empire in the Pacific, while The Day of the Saxon, commissioned by British Field Marshal Lord Frederick Roberts, predicted the rise of a greater German Reich based on national supremacy and ethnic purity.

The books both made accurate predictions about future events, but entrenched isolationists in America were not threatened by an obscure military theorist who didn't have much influence.

Lea also planned to write a third book called The Swarming of the Slav predicting a Russian move to dominate Europe, but he died before he could complete it.

A stroke several months later, however, forced Lea to give up these positions and retire to the United States, where he died at age 35 in Ocean Park, California.